1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a chip electronic device produced by housing a compact electronic element such as an inductor, a capacitor and a resistor with resin and a manufacturing process thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
When a chip electronic device is mounted on a printed wiring board, in general, it is known that whether soldering has been done sufficiently is decided by checking visually whether a fillet of solder is formed between an external terminal of the chip and a conductive pattern of the printed wiring board. To check the soldering condition surely in this way, the fillet needs to be formed on a side of the chip electronic device. As for a chip wherein external terminals are formed by punching a strip into a specified shape, the easiest method of forming a fillet which can be checked from outside is forming the fillet on cut surfaces which are made when the external terminals are separated from the strip. The terminals show on sides of a housing of the electronic element. The external terminals, after separated from the strip, are plated in order to improve solderability before an electronic element is mounted thereon. However, since the cut surfaces are formed after the plating, the cut surfaces are not plated and easy to be oxidized by heat generated during cutting or during soldering of the electronic element onto the external terminals. Thus, the solderability of the cut surfaces are deteriorated, and it becomes difficult to form the fillet of solder thereon.
To solve this problem, the external terminals are bent so that plated sides of the terminals show on the sides of the housing, or the cut surfaces are plated again separately to avoid oxidation. However, these bending or extraplating helps to raise a production cost.